


Slowly, then all at once

by orphan_account



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 16:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1175205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took the longest 27 seconds of Jim’s life for it to really hit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slowly, then all at once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feveredpitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feveredpitch/gifts).



> McKirk based on the quote ‘i fell in love the way you fall alseep slowly then all at once’

When they met on that shuttle ride, Jim thought they could get along. Bones (he’d nicknamed him) was gruff, grumpy, sarcastic, and for Jim, entertaining. It helped that he was a little something other than just easy on the eye, he figured.

In the first year at the Academy they had a couple of classes together. Other than that, in the beginning, it was each to their own way and shared meals whenever their lunch times overlapped and whenever Leo was out of the clinic early enough for Jim to pop in at his dorm room for dinner.  
The months went by and the visits were more the rule than the exception, and they ended up requesting to share a dorm the second year. For convenience.

Soon enough you wouldn’t see one without the other whenever they were out of class.

Leo relaxed around Jim, made it easy to talk to him, and the pressure he felt from everybody else, always watching and waiting for the first slip-up to prove he really was just his name, he didn’t feel from his best friend. They’d easily fallen into that, he noticed, being best friends.

It felt silly to think of it like that, and Jim wasn’t sure he was right, he’d never had anyone be that close before. But he figured that’s what they were.

To Leo, Jim was a breath of fresh air amidst all the coursework and clinic shifts dealing with “damned reckless kids and the stupidest injuries, you wouldn’t believe some of the stories I sit through while I patch ‘em up.” That is, when Jim wasn’t the reckless kid with a stupid injury, though honestly that didn’t happen all that often, or so he’d try to argue.

The third year was one for talking late into the night and sharing everything and anything weighing on them from their past, since there was no point drowning it in booze anymore, not when they had each other. Jim was happy to listen and to be heard, specially when it was those stories that were buried so deep it was hard just getting them out, and he was forever grateful for the amount of control he still had over that fuzzy feeling in his stomach when Leo hugged him afterwards.

When he took the Kobayashi Maru a third time, he was proud of him, Jim knew that, even if he hid it under barely-meant insults over the drinks he had insisted on getting for him later at a bar near the campus.

“Not congratulatory drinks, you cheating bastard, just celebrating you finally gettin’ that thing outta the way.”

He couldn’t help notice the carefree smile on Leo’s face and he could swear his eyes didn’t use to be that green before.

Of course he got suspended, but hell if that meant Leo would just leave him there. He called it a favor, though through all the sweating and upset stomach it really didn’t feel like one. It got him on the ship, though, that it did.

_“Where are we?”_

_“Medical Bay.”_

_“This isn’t worth it.”_

_“A little suffering’s good for the soul.”_

There were a few more hypos between waking up with a jolt at the words “lightning storm” and getting to the bridge to warn everyone it was a trap, but he wasn’t so out of it that he didn’t notice the little exchange between Pike and McCoy when he said he’d take full responsibility.

It hit him then, that he had risked his position on that ship to get him in. He didn’t dwell on it until later, when he was stranded in Delta Vega freezing his ass off as punishment for his insubordination.

It had a bit of an ironic undertone at first, how he’d been thrown off the ship after his Bones had put them both through so much trouble to get him there in the first place. His Bones, he repeated to himself when he caught his own thoughts. There was no time to make much of it then, he went from running for his life to a mind meld, to transwarp beaming back to the ship, to getting Spock to beat him up so he could take over.

He was officially made captain and he beamed just at Leo for a few seconds before acknowledging the rest of the cheering crowd in the room.

His first order as he stepped onto the bridge, his bridge, was directed at him too.

_“Bones, buckle up!”_

He rolled his eyes at him but Jim didn’t care, and the first thing he did when he showed up in his quarters, after demanding a glass of Romulan Ale he knew Bones had hidden somewhere, was ask him what was he even doing in the bridge in the first place.

He watched him gruffly mutter some barely acceptable excuse as he poured them both the drinks.

It felt right, more than anything before in his life, being on that ship with his best friend. And if their arms lingered tight around each other a bit more than usual when he left a couple hours later, neither of them seemed to mind it. And Jim most definitely didn’t give it a minute of his thoughts, not at all.

He was lucky, having someone like that. He’d do anything for Jim, be it beaming down with him to help save an entire population from a volcano or jumping off a cliff to get back to the ship.

_“It was a shortcut, Bones.”_

_“Of course, Jim. Absolutely necessary.”_

He was lucky to have his shoulder to cry on when they took the ship from him and again when they lost Pike. Even if he adamantly refused to show up for his check-up and insisted he was fine knowing full well he wouldn’t buy it. He still took note of it, of how much he cared and how little it mattered if Jim got pissed at him if it meant making sure he was safe and healthy.

When they got Khan he noticed his priority was to get his blood, even knowing he was beyond furious with the guy for everything he did, he remained professional and he was a doctor first and foremost, and Jim admired him for it, almost reverently.

It took the longest 27 seconds of Jim’s life for it to really hit.

_“Sir, the torpedo just armed itself.”_

_“It’s gonna detonate in 30 seconds.”_

They can’t beam them back, Marcus has got to disarm it, and of course the idiot is yelling to get her out of there instead of saving him, of course he is.

_“You beam me back, he dies.”_

He can’t, he can’t go like that, he’s gotta come back. Just a few more seconds, she can do it.

_“10, 9, 8…”_

Oh god, Bones, shut up, shut up.

_“4, 3…”_

_“Shit.”_

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Jim collapses on the console, barely holding himself up on his arms.

_“Deactivation successful, Captain.”_

_“Dr. McCoy, are you alright?”_

He has to be, dammit, he has to.

_“Bones!”_

_“Jim?”_

He breathes out heavily, he barely even registers what he says after that. Because suddenly that’s all he cares to hear, his name in Bones’ mouth. And he got to hear that over and over again later that night, after he told him, and somehow he was lucky enough that he got to hear it back from him.

_"I love you, I love you so much, I was so scared."_

_"It’s okay, Jim, I got you. I love you too, so much."_

And it didn’t matter that it had taken him almost dying for it all to catch up to Jim, everything from over three years, every look, every smile, every touch.

He fell in love with Bones the way he fell asleep, slowly, then all at once.


End file.
